BOOK LAUNCH | Art holds a high place in my life: DAMP Monograph 1995-

Please join us to celebrate the launch of the first monograph to document the nearly 30-year history of the influential Melbourne artist group DAMP:

Art holds a high place in my life: DAMP monograph 1995–
by Rosemary Forde, published by 3-ply, 2024 

Established in 1995, DAMP is one of Australia’s longest running collaborative artist groups and has included 76 artist members since then. The critically acclaimed group have pioneered collaborative practices in contemporary art in Australia, while consistently negotiating the relationship between artist and audience, and group dynamics. Their multi-disciplinary work in social exchange, sculpture, performance, drawing, video and installation, teeters on the tensions between playful and provocative, sincerity and humour. Rosemary Forde’s substantial monograph documents DAMP’s prolific exhibition history since 1995, through republished archival essays, ephemera, and reviews, alongside new critical writing and extensive visual documentation, as well as notes and drawings from DAMP’s archive.  

This is a free event, all are welcome.

About Rosemary Forde:  

Rosemary Forde is a curator and art historian based in Narrm Melbourne, with a focus on the recent history of contemporary art and discourse in Australia and Aotearoa. Her curatorial practice encompasses exhibitions, editorial and publication projects, public art, and pedagogical programs. She is a widely published art critic and served on the board of un Projects for many years, and co-edited the book un Anthology 2004-2014: a decade of art and ideas (2016). Her PhD in Curatorial Practice presented an unconventional survey of the artist group DAMP and formed a case study for the curatorial model of ‘exhibition as study’. Rosemary is also a sessional lecturer at the Victorian College of the Arts, University of Melbourne.  

About DAMP: 

Established in 1995, DAMP is one of Australia’s longest running collaborative artist groups and has included 76 artist members since then. The critically acclaimed group have pioneered collaborative practices in contemporary art in Australia, while contributing to a community of independent artists centered around local artist-run activity and through international networks. Across 30 years of practice, DAMP’s work has continued to negotiate the relationship between art, artist and audience, the role of the individual within groups, the inside and outside of groups and institutions. Using strategies of improvisation, humour, and exchange, it has been a particularly relevant practice to emerge in an era of privatisation impacting on art education and institutions.  

DAMP’s extensive exhibition history includes solo exhibitions at Caves Gallery, Gertrude Contemporary, Grey Area Art Space, Uplands Gallery, Neon Parc, Heide Museum of Modern Art, MADA Gallery and Utopian Slumps in Melbourne, as well as Artspace Sydney, Experimental Art Foundation, Adelaide, and La Trobe Regional Gallery, Victoria. Significant recent group exhibitions include Closer, Ian Potter Museum of Art, 2018, Every Brilliant Eye: Australian art in the 1990s, National Gallery of Victoria, 2017, Art as a Verb, Monash University Museum of Art, 2014, Bristol Biennale 2012: Storytelling, 2012, and The Sixth Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art, QAGOMA, 2009.  

DAMP is currently Sharon Goodwin, Debra Kunda, James Lynch.  

All members of DAMP since 1995, in alphabetical order: Helen Anderson, Benjamin Armstrong, Jonathon Bailey, Martin Burns, Dan Cass, Chad Chatterton, Paul Clarke, Bruce Craig, Rob Creedon, Nilusha Dassenaike, Susan Dasya, Narelle Desmond, Olivia Dwyer, Terry Eichler, Simone Ewenson, Marco Flores, Carla Gatehouse, Sam George, Sharon Goodwin, Matthew Grace, Ryan M Hale, Ry Haskings, Delrene Henry, Bianca Hester, Mark Hislop, George Huon, Raz Johnston, Jan Johnston, Spiro Kalantzis, Amanda Kasey, David Keating, Károly Keserü, Kerri Klumpp, Deb Kunda, Michael Kutschbach, Karyn Lindner, James Lynch, Amanda Marburg, Bronya Marillier, Kym Maxwell, Moya McKenna, Debra McPhail, Mark Misic, Suzanne Monckton, Dan Moynihan, Natasha Mullings, Kim Munro, Etoile Nasrallah, Geoff Newton, Daniel Noonan, Selina Ou, Stephanie Potts, Debbie Pridmore, Lisa Radford, Simon Rankin, Jarrod Rawlins, Phoebe Robinson, Melita Rowston, Kati Rule, Elissa Sadgrove, Sean Samon, Dion Sanderson, Alexandra Sanderson, Kieran Shevlin, Carmel Taig, Masato Takasaka, Nat Thomas, Blair Trethowan, Elizabeth Van Herwaarden, James Welch, Bradd Westmoreland, Kylie Wilkinson, Elliot Willcocks, Neil Wilson, Rose Winford, Jude Worters.  

This project has been assisted by the Australian Government through Creative Australia, its principal arts investment and advisory body. Supported by the City of Melbourne Arts Grants.  

(Image: DAMP’s studio at Gertrude Contemporary, featuring Untitled (pencil), 2010. Photo: Matthew Stanton)